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What the Bible Says About Child Training
This is a study to help parents better discover the mechanics for successfully raising children. To accomplish these ends, this book carefully defines parental accountability, authority, and responsibility. The book also describes the nature of a child and explains the biblically defined states of development. With these principles firmly established, this book presents a biblical system for rearing children.
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First published January 1, 1980
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March 4, 2019Pros:
- It is very helpful in pointing out that there are different types of disobedience: you can't classify all as outright rebellion. Different types of disobedience require different consequences, and the principle of penalty = making restitution has helped me greatly in not resorting to time-outs for every. single. thing (thus making them less effective).
- It lends confidence, through examples and logic, that kids under authority ARE happier. I have always been half-apologetic about my authority over my children ("I don't know what I'm doing; why should they listen to me?"), so this confidence has greatly helped our family. My three-year-old wasn't responding to me well because, frankly, I was wishy-washy. As soon as I became more confident and consistent, which I do owe to reading this book, she REALLY DID become happier. Her childcare at our weekly co-op told me she was so improved she was "like a different kid." I think the confidence also came from my above point, that restitution is a good rule of thumb for assigning consequences. It took a lot of guesswork out.
Cons:
- I think it fails to take into account its audience. The author repeatedly says that kids for the past few generations have been raised with no self-control and are entitled and lazy. While I technically agree with this, I am actually one of those kids. It distanced me every time he said something like that, as if he was siding with the people, some correct and some not, who are always complaining about "those dang millennials." I don't think this was rhetorically effective.
- It passes over, almost dismissively, the possibility of abuse within the realm of corporal punishment. All of its verbiage tends to tell the parents that they have the absolute right to rule their children, which could easily feed abuse. But the two sections with mention of abuse are brief, and one of them, unfortunately, even advises the non-abusive parent to train the kids not to tick the abusive parent off. I was shocked. If indeed the current generation of parents is from a generation without self-control, then we have to assume, by the book's own logic, that these parents are more likely to let their anger get the best of them and fall into abusive behavior. Combined with the complete confidence in parental authority this book espouses, this dismissive attitude toward the potential for abuse could easily be twisted in wicked hands. Of course, every principle, even a good one, is able to be perverted. But I don't think the book safeguarded enough against such perversion.
- It tends to hold up as the ideal the 1950s vision of marriage and family (it actually implies in one appendix that the "1950s marriage" is to be desired): children seen, not heard; daddy goes to work; mommy stays at home. This is in danger of chronological snobbery to the same degree as the utopian progressive elitism of the entitled generations Fugate condemns. No one era matches the biblical ideal. And, I am a stay-at-home mom, but his assertion that young women should not go to college really did make my mouth fall open--especially because it was in a one-page section with very little support for this rather huge claim (though, to his credit, he did refer me to another book on the subject in which I assume more support was to be found). What of women whose husbands die? What of singles? What of divorce? What of women whose spouses turn out to be one of those lack-of-self-control, self-absorbed abusers? What of women married to men who are doing the best they can but don't have great job opportunities in this economic climate--so dual income is needed? Are these women without husbands and without degrees to be thrown back on the charity of their dads until a man comes along to save them? This made me twitch, and now I have a great urge to go read some Wollstonecraft.
- "We have now seen the entire system for child training as revealed in the Word of God." This is a direct quote that feels representative of the tone. It struck me as naively overconfident, especially with how much he extrapolated from verses that leave much more room for interpretation so that they can hold true across cultures and centuries. Can God ever really be reduced to a system--especially one that seemingly reached its peak in 1950? It seems to me, from the life of Christ and from His involvement in my own life, that He resists systems.
- Last but not least, this book has almost no mention of grace, the only power that can truly change hearts. I agree that obedience does set kids up for greater success in life. It can also help them see the goodness of the Gospel: our desire-but-inability to obey points toward our need for a Redeemer. But mere obedience doesn't necessarily lead to a Gospel-soaked life: it can just as easily lead to a self-righteous, moralistic life. Perhaps the need for grace and heart change in children's lives wasn't the book's focus, in which case the title would be more accurate as What the Bible Says about Discipline. But the book doesn't talk about the most important aspect of child training, pointing our kids toward Jesus. It doesn't talk about how parents need to understand that they are God's ambassadors of grace: that these kids are not actually theirs, but His, and that their main need is not obedience, or good manners, but a Person who can save them, and who is more than ready to do so. In the book's tone and in its subject matter, I missed this grace toward children.
So, the reason I was able to benefit from the Pros because I've read other parenting books that ARE more grace-saturated, that DO guard against abuse with more urgency and compassion, that avoid an (even unintended) "kids these days" tone. so I can merely raise my eyebrows at the "cons" and gain from the good stuff.
Christ is FOR my kids. I want to show them that not only with the security of firm boundaries, but also with a gentle tone, a loving heart toward them, our sweet times together, and the knowledge that as a parent, I am just as fallible as they are--and we need the SAME Savior.
- It is very helpful in pointing out that there are different types of disobedience: you can't classify all as outright rebellion. Different types of disobedience require different consequences, and the principle of penalty = making restitution has helped me greatly in not resorting to time-outs for every. single. thing (thus making them less effective).
- It lends confidence, through examples and logic, that kids under authority ARE happier. I have always been half-apologetic about my authority over my children ("I don't know what I'm doing; why should they listen to me?"), so this confidence has greatly helped our family. My three-year-old wasn't responding to me well because, frankly, I was wishy-washy. As soon as I became more confident and consistent, which I do owe to reading this book, she REALLY DID become happier. Her childcare at our weekly co-op told me she was so improved she was "like a different kid." I think the confidence also came from my above point, that restitution is a good rule of thumb for assigning consequences. It took a lot of guesswork out.
Cons:
- I think it fails to take into account its audience. The author repeatedly says that kids for the past few generations have been raised with no self-control and are entitled and lazy. While I technically agree with this, I am actually one of those kids. It distanced me every time he said something like that, as if he was siding with the people, some correct and some not, who are always complaining about "those dang millennials." I don't think this was rhetorically effective.
- It passes over, almost dismissively, the possibility of abuse within the realm of corporal punishment. All of its verbiage tends to tell the parents that they have the absolute right to rule their children, which could easily feed abuse. But the two sections with mention of abuse are brief, and one of them, unfortunately, even advises the non-abusive parent to train the kids not to tick the abusive parent off. I was shocked. If indeed the current generation of parents is from a generation without self-control, then we have to assume, by the book's own logic, that these parents are more likely to let their anger get the best of them and fall into abusive behavior. Combined with the complete confidence in parental authority this book espouses, this dismissive attitude toward the potential for abuse could easily be twisted in wicked hands. Of course, every principle, even a good one, is able to be perverted. But I don't think the book safeguarded enough against such perversion.
- It tends to hold up as the ideal the 1950s vision of marriage and family (it actually implies in one appendix that the "1950s marriage" is to be desired): children seen, not heard; daddy goes to work; mommy stays at home. This is in danger of chronological snobbery to the same degree as the utopian progressive elitism of the entitled generations Fugate condemns. No one era matches the biblical ideal. And, I am a stay-at-home mom, but his assertion that young women should not go to college really did make my mouth fall open--especially because it was in a one-page section with very little support for this rather huge claim (though, to his credit, he did refer me to another book on the subject in which I assume more support was to be found). What of women whose husbands die? What of singles? What of divorce? What of women whose spouses turn out to be one of those lack-of-self-control, self-absorbed abusers? What of women married to men who are doing the best they can but don't have great job opportunities in this economic climate--so dual income is needed? Are these women without husbands and without degrees to be thrown back on the charity of their dads until a man comes along to save them? This made me twitch, and now I have a great urge to go read some Wollstonecraft.
- "We have now seen the entire system for child training as revealed in the Word of God." This is a direct quote that feels representative of the tone. It struck me as naively overconfident, especially with how much he extrapolated from verses that leave much more room for interpretation so that they can hold true across cultures and centuries. Can God ever really be reduced to a system--especially one that seemingly reached its peak in 1950? It seems to me, from the life of Christ and from His involvement in my own life, that He resists systems.
- Last but not least, this book has almost no mention of grace, the only power that can truly change hearts. I agree that obedience does set kids up for greater success in life. It can also help them see the goodness of the Gospel: our desire-but-inability to obey points toward our need for a Redeemer. But mere obedience doesn't necessarily lead to a Gospel-soaked life: it can just as easily lead to a self-righteous, moralistic life. Perhaps the need for grace and heart change in children's lives wasn't the book's focus, in which case the title would be more accurate as What the Bible Says about Discipline. But the book doesn't talk about the most important aspect of child training, pointing our kids toward Jesus. It doesn't talk about how parents need to understand that they are God's ambassadors of grace: that these kids are not actually theirs, but His, and that their main need is not obedience, or good manners, but a Person who can save them, and who is more than ready to do so. In the book's tone and in its subject matter, I missed this grace toward children.
So, the reason I was able to benefit from the Pros because I've read other parenting books that ARE more grace-saturated, that DO guard against abuse with more urgency and compassion, that avoid an (even unintended) "kids these days" tone. so I can merely raise my eyebrows at the "cons" and gain from the good stuff.
Christ is FOR my kids. I want to show them that not only with the security of firm boundaries, but also with a gentle tone, a loving heart toward them, our sweet times together, and the knowledge that as a parent, I am just as fallible as they are--and we need the SAME Savior.
January 15, 2008
This is a horribly inacurate dangerous book that encourages child abuse.
June 13, 2015
Biblically based, old-school i.e. children should respect those in authority over them, consequences for disobedience, etc. I didn't give 5 stars only because the writing is a bit dry.
September 11, 2020
J. Richard Fugate is well-known within the Christian Homeschool Movement for his advocacy of child training practices that emphasize parental authority and whipping children with tree branches and dowel rods. The founder of the Foundation for Biblical Research, Fugate is the former CEO of the popular homeschooling curriculum company Alpha Omega Publications. Alpha Omega’s curriculums are recommended by HSLDA and highly praised by Cathy Duffy’s Cathy Duffy Reviews, Mary Pride’s Practical Homeschooling, and Paul and Gena Suarez’s Old Schoolhouse Magazine; Alpha Omega is an HSLDA discount group. Fugate has also served as the Vice-President of Finance for another popular homeschool curriculum company, Accelerated Christian Education, and the Business Manager of Reb Bradley’s homeschool organization, Family Ministries.
Fugate’s seminal book on child training is "What the Bible Says About… Child Training," published by Alpha Omega Publications in 1980. Over 260,000 copies of the book have been sold to date. In the book, Fugate claims to set forth "the Biblical system for training children" "without human adulteration". This system consists of two elements: controlling and teaching. "The controlling phase," Fugate writes, "is the establishment of the parents’ right of rulership over the will of the child." His system is fixated on the idea of parental control (or rulership), in which the parent becomes the child’s symbolic "Most High." Indeed, Fugate believes control to be more important than the second step of teaching: "The primary role of the parent is to act as an external control over the child’s nature." This right to control or rule is virtually unlimited: "Government has no right to administer justice…or to exercise authority over other independent institutions, like family and marriage."
Fugate expands on this lack of limits, arguing that "no other institution or person has rulership rights over children." In cases of abuse, "Parents are directly responsible to God for any misuse of their authority. There is no such thing as 'child rights' sanctioned by the Word of God. The child has only the God-given right to be raised by his parents without the intervention of any other institution."
Fugate’s rejection of children’s rights leads him to reject nearly all government intervention on behalf of children. (He makes exceptions only for extremes like child rape and murder.) He rails against "child advocacy agencies and child abuse laws," saying that, "Parents must not allow government to usurp their authority in those areas in which God alone holds the parents accountable."
Instead of government intervening on behalf of abused children, Fugate believes that children should consider their abuse to be God "preparing such a child to glorify Himself through suffering." In fact, in the event that you become aware that a child is being abused, Fugate does not encourage you to report the abuse to the proper authorities. Rather, he encourages you to simply "remember that God is in control":
"Parents who misuse their authority fall under the direct judgment of God. When we see a child receive what we consider mistreatment from such parents, we must remember that God is in control and has chosen to place the soul life of that child under those parents specifically. God has a plan for every life, a plan that incorporates even the unfairness of this world. Perhaps the child who receives unfair treatment at the hand of his parents requires just that kind of pressure in order to submit his will to God. Perhaps God is preparing such a child to glorify Himself through suffering just as Job did. God’s plan is greater than anything we can comprehend with our finite minds in our limited moment of time. We see an innocent, defenseless child while God sees a soul for which He has made complete provision. God makes no mistakes; therefore we must allow Him to deal with rebellious parents."
In the later half of his book, Fugate again addresses a situation of abusive parents. This time the situation is when one spouse is abusive and the other is not: "Occasionally a parent with a serious sin problem in his own life will truly abuse his child under the guise of chastisement. Such a parent has a soul problem that can only be permanently solved by spiritual means." Once again, Fugate does not encourage the spouse of the abusive parent to report the abuse to the proper authorities or even take the children away to a safe space. Instead, he gives truly dangerous advice: he tells the spouse to simply "control" the abused children more so that they do not "cause" the abusive parent to continually abuse them. Fugate writes,
"If the father has the problem, the mother must take special care to control the children herself. She can train the children not to give their father cause to express his anger against them… The more stable parent must maintain the children’s respect of the other parent."
Tragically, Fugate is not alone among conservative and evangelical child training experts in making such a recommendation. Michael Pearl makes a similar suggestion in his now-infamous book "To Train Up a Child." Pearl argues,
"Mother, if you think the father is too forceful in his discipline, there is something you can do. While he is away demand, expect, train for and discipline to receive instant and complete obedience from your children. When the father comes home the house will be peaceful and well ordered. The children will always obey their father, giving him no need to discipline them."
Fugate and Pearl essentially want children to tolerate their abuse and walk on eggshells around their abusers. Unfortunately, these suggestions will only further enable and empower an abuser. These suggestions will also contribute to the devastating impact of spiritual abuse, as children believe they must be masochistic about the abuse they experience: feeling they have to "praise" God for their pain and not expect the authorities in their lives to seek justice against those who hurt them.
Fugate’s seminal book on child training is "What the Bible Says About… Child Training," published by Alpha Omega Publications in 1980. Over 260,000 copies of the book have been sold to date. In the book, Fugate claims to set forth "the Biblical system for training children" "without human adulteration". This system consists of two elements: controlling and teaching. "The controlling phase," Fugate writes, "is the establishment of the parents’ right of rulership over the will of the child." His system is fixated on the idea of parental control (or rulership), in which the parent becomes the child’s symbolic "Most High." Indeed, Fugate believes control to be more important than the second step of teaching: "The primary role of the parent is to act as an external control over the child’s nature." This right to control or rule is virtually unlimited: "Government has no right to administer justice…or to exercise authority over other independent institutions, like family and marriage."
Fugate expands on this lack of limits, arguing that "no other institution or person has rulership rights over children." In cases of abuse, "Parents are directly responsible to God for any misuse of their authority. There is no such thing as 'child rights' sanctioned by the Word of God. The child has only the God-given right to be raised by his parents without the intervention of any other institution."
Fugate’s rejection of children’s rights leads him to reject nearly all government intervention on behalf of children. (He makes exceptions only for extremes like child rape and murder.) He rails against "child advocacy agencies and child abuse laws," saying that, "Parents must not allow government to usurp their authority in those areas in which God alone holds the parents accountable."
Instead of government intervening on behalf of abused children, Fugate believes that children should consider their abuse to be God "preparing such a child to glorify Himself through suffering." In fact, in the event that you become aware that a child is being abused, Fugate does not encourage you to report the abuse to the proper authorities. Rather, he encourages you to simply "remember that God is in control":
"Parents who misuse their authority fall under the direct judgment of God. When we see a child receive what we consider mistreatment from such parents, we must remember that God is in control and has chosen to place the soul life of that child under those parents specifically. God has a plan for every life, a plan that incorporates even the unfairness of this world. Perhaps the child who receives unfair treatment at the hand of his parents requires just that kind of pressure in order to submit his will to God. Perhaps God is preparing such a child to glorify Himself through suffering just as Job did. God’s plan is greater than anything we can comprehend with our finite minds in our limited moment of time. We see an innocent, defenseless child while God sees a soul for which He has made complete provision. God makes no mistakes; therefore we must allow Him to deal with rebellious parents."
In the later half of his book, Fugate again addresses a situation of abusive parents. This time the situation is when one spouse is abusive and the other is not: "Occasionally a parent with a serious sin problem in his own life will truly abuse his child under the guise of chastisement. Such a parent has a soul problem that can only be permanently solved by spiritual means." Once again, Fugate does not encourage the spouse of the abusive parent to report the abuse to the proper authorities or even take the children away to a safe space. Instead, he gives truly dangerous advice: he tells the spouse to simply "control" the abused children more so that they do not "cause" the abusive parent to continually abuse them. Fugate writes,
"If the father has the problem, the mother must take special care to control the children herself. She can train the children not to give their father cause to express his anger against them… The more stable parent must maintain the children’s respect of the other parent."
Tragically, Fugate is not alone among conservative and evangelical child training experts in making such a recommendation. Michael Pearl makes a similar suggestion in his now-infamous book "To Train Up a Child." Pearl argues,
"Mother, if you think the father is too forceful in his discipline, there is something you can do. While he is away demand, expect, train for and discipline to receive instant and complete obedience from your children. When the father comes home the house will be peaceful and well ordered. The children will always obey their father, giving him no need to discipline them."
Fugate and Pearl essentially want children to tolerate their abuse and walk on eggshells around their abusers. Unfortunately, these suggestions will only further enable and empower an abuser. These suggestions will also contribute to the devastating impact of spiritual abuse, as children believe they must be masochistic about the abuse they experience: feeling they have to "praise" God for their pain and not expect the authorities in their lives to seek justice against those who hurt them.
December 17, 2024
Please avoid this book!
It was given to me when I was a new mother and to this day I regret that I read and applied its teachings. Because it is filled with Bible verses I believed it was correct. I was a young Christian without prior biblical knowledge and unaware that Bible verses taken out of context and that without balance they can be harmful.
The message of this book is that the sin nature children are born with should be beaten out of them. It is harsh. It is unloving. I don’t remember any mention of grace, love or gentleness. Just conquer that child and his evil sin nature at all costs. It is full of HORRIBLY unbalanced Bible teaching.
Read the other one star reviews showing that I’m not the only one to recognize the harshness of this book.
It was given to me when I was a new mother and to this day I regret that I read and applied its teachings. Because it is filled with Bible verses I believed it was correct. I was a young Christian without prior biblical knowledge and unaware that Bible verses taken out of context and that without balance they can be harmful.
The message of this book is that the sin nature children are born with should be beaten out of them. It is harsh. It is unloving. I don’t remember any mention of grace, love or gentleness. Just conquer that child and his evil sin nature at all costs. It is full of HORRIBLY unbalanced Bible teaching.
Read the other one star reviews showing that I’m not the only one to recognize the harshness of this book.
March 29, 2012
I have read this entire book and it never takes the child's point of view into account, not even once! It basically paints children as evil tyrants. It also advocates physical abuse, which it terms "chastisement". Even most people I know who *do* use corporal punishment would say that this book crosses the line.
Here is an excerpt:
"The rod is to be a thick wooden stick like a switch. Of course, the size of the rod should vary with the size of the child. A willow or peach tree branch may be fine for a rebellious two-year-old, but a small hickory rod or dowel rod would be more fitting for a well-muscled teenage boy." Seriously???
Here is an excerpt:
"The rod is to be a thick wooden stick like a switch. Of course, the size of the rod should vary with the size of the child. A willow or peach tree branch may be fine for a rebellious two-year-old, but a small hickory rod or dowel rod would be more fitting for a well-muscled teenage boy." Seriously???
October 15, 2007
While I cannot say that I completely and wholly agree with everything within this book, there are a few good principles that I gleaned that are practical in application and in understanding the nature of children.
September 7, 2010
I found it to be a helpful book.
May 30, 2012
I really appreciated this book.. Learnt a lot..
September 11, 2014
Not as good as "To Train up a Child" but definitely has some good insight. Much less 'controversial' I might add...
January 31, 2020
Best child training book I’ve read in awhile, with the least “bones”. Total depravity is present of course, but less prevalent than most books on this subject. Practical suggestions.
January 17, 2025
As a person who is a pastor, biblical studies professor, avid fiction lover, and lover of history and philosophy, I have read hundreds of books. Authors range from the likes of R.A. Torrey to Fredrich Nietzsche. In all that reading, this is by far the most disturbing book I have ever read, and the hardest to finish. I am an extremely conservative Christian, fully committed to the reality that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. This author twists and distorts scripture to justify cultish control tactics and corporal punishment methods that amount to torturing a child until he or she admits the parent was right, however long that may take.
Justified with anecdotal stories of the good the book has done, a cursory internet search reveals horror stories of the victims of these methods, who often mention this book explicitly as the manual upon which these dark deeds were based. The most disturbing thing about the book, and the thing that made it so painful to read, was the constant claim that it advocates “God’s way.” The author twists scripture throughout, citing only the linguistic studies of his own organization to validate his dubius use of biblical languages. The point of this is clear, the author views himself as the only one qualified to do lexical studies on biblical words, and any qualified linguist who would challenge him should be ignored by the reader.
It is a true tragedy that books like this are used so widely by some parents, while few pastors and Bible scholars have taken the time necessary to provide sound biblical refutation. This must change!
Justified with anecdotal stories of the good the book has done, a cursory internet search reveals horror stories of the victims of these methods, who often mention this book explicitly as the manual upon which these dark deeds were based. The most disturbing thing about the book, and the thing that made it so painful to read, was the constant claim that it advocates “God’s way.” The author twists scripture throughout, citing only the linguistic studies of his own organization to validate his dubius use of biblical languages. The point of this is clear, the author views himself as the only one qualified to do lexical studies on biblical words, and any qualified linguist who would challenge him should be ignored by the reader.
It is a true tragedy that books like this are used so widely by some parents, while few pastors and Bible scholars have taken the time necessary to provide sound biblical refutation. This must change!
May 25, 2021
Informative. One thing I appreciated about this book is not only that it's filled with godly wisdom, but it also deals with all ages of children. I have been trying to find good child rearing books and most are 13 and under so I'm thankful to have found this for even teens!
May 1, 2022
The very high-level ideas if how to progress from strict control with a young child to lose control an older child are very sensible and well thought out. They do speak against excessive punishment, abuse, etcetera. However, the overall tone of the book and the language they choose leaves the books feeling somewhat authoritarian in the parenting style it’s promoting.
December 17, 2022
Great for parents who have school age children and have not yet begun to train or discipline them but want to start. It is definitely like having a bucket of ice poured on you, but if that's what you need to reset your family then this is a good choice.
November 10, 2025
Best thing about it is that it gives parents the understanding that they actually need to train their children. Just make sure you add a big dose of grace.
August 21, 2012
Just bought this book haven't started reading it yet but after seeing some of the reveiws I am deffinatly going to pray and ask God to open my eyes and to guide me to the right knowlege and to help me to know if this is truly what the Bible says about Child Training.
08/21/2012
Just finished this book and LOVED it! It was very straight forward! I found comfort & so much knowlege from the Absolute Truth given straight from the Bible! I have already been applying this truth in my parenting with my two children and have already began to see such a Godly transformation in my whole family! I would highly reccomend this book to anyone struggling with parenting!
08/21/2012
Just finished this book and LOVED it! It was very straight forward! I found comfort & so much knowlege from the Absolute Truth given straight from the Bible! I have already been applying this truth in my parenting with my two children and have already began to see such a Godly transformation in my whole family! I would highly reccomend this book to anyone struggling with parenting!
January 21, 2014
Some of the conclusions in this book are weird. For instance, the idea that Bible explains exactly what the "rod" should be. Some of the Bible verses are a stretch to fit the situations discussed. Some of what is discussed is cultural, not necessarily biblical.
But I did appreciate much of what was written. A lot of it is very practical. I, especially, needed the admonishment to be consistent.
But I did appreciate much of what was written. A lot of it is very practical. I, especially, needed the admonishment to be consistent.
November 30, 2016
EXCELLENT book that saved my life with my children. Especially with my very stubborn son. Author shows us in scripture how God tells us to train our children. Proper discipline IS love as this book explains. No yelling, no freaking out. calm, matter of fact training, love and discipline when needed. Very helpful book.
Read
January 17, 2014Some good principles. Ultimately I think the book fails to distinguish between the promises of scripture and the function of proverbs as a guide to how life should, but does not always go.
August 28, 2015
As with any book of this sort, there are things to take away from it and things to leave.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews